Mrs. Verdon, Lily, and Mr. Ryan.

Arnold muttered something under his breath. Mary came towards the pair
at once, with a little affected exclamation of surprise.

"You here, Arnold! Isn't it lovely, Miss Kilner? The view from the
terrace is always so pretty by moonlight. How very warm it is! But don't
you think you ought to have a shawl?"

They were all mixed up now; there were no more quiet words. Everybody
seemed to talk and laugh at once.

A stable-clock struck ten, and Mrs. Lennard told Elsie that it was time
to go.

Francis Ryan and his two ladies went back across the old bridge. Miss
Kilner, wrapt in a soft buff shawl, paused a second to look down into
the dark moat. Only a few moonbeams touched the still water; the rushes
stood up like tall black spears; one could fancy armed men crouched in
ambush there in the shadow of the arch. She walked on again by Mrs.
Lennard's side.

"We were rather dull at the Court to-night," said Francis. "Wayne has
grown accustomed to living in tents, and that sort of thing, you see.
The old place needs a lady's rule. Mrs. Verdon will make a good
_chatelaine_."

"Has she been telling you her secrets?" Mrs. Lennard asked.

"No; but the Danforths were talking."

"The Danforths generally are talking," the old lady replied.

"Well, but I think they are right. It's time for Wayne to settle. A man
should look after his own place and know his own people. And if he has a
big house he wants a wife."

"When he wants her he can find her without the assistance of other
people. The worst matches I've ever known were those made up by sisters
and cousins and aunts," said Mrs. Lennard in her decided way. "Elsie, my
dear, what are you looking at? That was only a cat that ran across the
road. You are getting nervous. I shall send you off to bed."

CHAPTER XVI

_GOING TO CHURCH_

"But having entered in, we shall find there
Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer,
And faces of crowned angels all about."
--ROSSETTI.

Elsie woke on Sunday morning with her thoughts full of the charms of
Wayne's Court.

She pictured the place to herself in the silence of the early hours, the
cool depths of shadow in the green aisles, the trimly-kept gardens, the
first sunshine stealing along the grey terrace. Did Arnold Wayne care
for her well enough to ask her to come and reign over his old home?

He liked her, she was sure of that. And his cousins